Portumna Creative Schools Team – from left: Eoghan Donnelly, Ava Keary, Esme Duane, Sadhbh Mechan, Sebastian Jagielo, Victoria Raden, Jessica Ruttledge, Meadhbh Cowan, Cathal Egan.
In 2023 Portumna Community School was one of a select number of schools in Ireland invited to participate in the Creative Schools Programme, an initiative run by the Arts Council of Ireland.
A core aim of this initiative is to support schools to develop a programme of creative activities that respond to and celebrate the creative needs and interests of both students and teachers. This programme is steered by a creative committee with the student’s voice at the centre.
This year Portumna’s Creative Committee have decided to run a creative writing competition open to students, teachers, and the local community! While exploring themes for the competition, the students reflected on issues most pertinent to their own lives at present. They spoke about how leaving secondary school is a transitory time, a time when their own lives will change dramatically. This inspired them to present a theme around how one’s life can pivot and change dramatically for the better or worse.
To coincide with this competition, the school has invited renowned Irish sports woman Cora Staunton, Gaelic footballer (four All-Irelands and three Ladies National Football Leagues) to give a talk to the students on her career and experience of writing her autobiography ‘Game Changer’ on International Book Day, March 7.
HOW TO ENTER the competition
Theme: A time in your life when everything changed for the better/or worse.
You are invited to submit a short prose piece/essay – U16, max 500 words; U18, max 1,000 words; over 18, max 1,500 words – in response to the theme above.
Submissions and all inquiries to be emailed to: EnglishDepartment@portumnacs.ie
Deadline: March 25, 5pm
Prize: There will be three prizes, and each winner will receive a €50 Eason voucher and have their essay presented on Loughrea Community Radio Station.
Creative Schools is a flagship initiative of the Creative Ireland Programme to enable the creative potential of every child. Creative Schools is led by the Arts Council in partnership with the Department of Education and the Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media.
The initiative is also informed by the Arts Council’s ten-year strategy (2016 -25) Making Great Art Work: Leading the Development of the Arts in Ireland. The Creative Schools initiative supports schools/centres to put the arts and creativity at the heart of children’s and young people’s lives. This initiative provides opportunities for children and young people to build their artistic and creative skills; to communicate, collaborate, stimulate their imaginations, be inventive, and to harness their curiosity. It will empower children and young people to develop, implement and evaluate arts and creative activity throughout their schools/centres and stimulate additional ways of working that reinforce the impact of creativity on children and young people’s learning. development and wellbeing.
